This month, we’re featuring two authors with new poems from Guatemala and Greece.
September 2015 Poetry Feature
September 28, 2015
Poetry, Translation
Review: There’s Something I Want You to Do
September 26, 2015
Reviews
Book by CHARLES BAXTER
Reviewed by
A new Charles Baxter book is always cause for celebration. As a writer, I always learn a thing or two about craft while being provoked, moved, entertained, and unsettled. Baxter’s latest collection of stories, There’s Something I Want You To Do, serves his usual range of social commentary, humor, wisdom, and good yarn in multiple structures.
Baxter begins this one with an epigraph from Primo Levi’s The Reawakening about the Ten Commandments, also known as The Decalogue:
“…Nobody is born with a decalogue already formed… everyone builds his own… everybody’s moral universe, suitably interpreted, comes to be identified with the sum of his former experiences, and so represents an abridged form of his biography.”
Baxter has called this ten-story collection his decalogue, and it feels like his own deeply personal digest of experience.
Contributors in Conversation: Valerie Duff and Leslie McGrath
September 25, 2015
Podcasts & Audio
In this episode of The Common’s Contributors in Conversation podcast, Issue 07 contributors Valerie Duff and Leslie McGrath read and discuss their poems “Folk Magic” and “In Praise of Prey.”
The Common at The Mead
September 24, 2015
News and Events
Event Date:
Saturday, November 7, 2015 – 5:00pm – 6:00pm
Location:
Amherst College, Mead Art Museum, Rotherwas Room
The Common welcomes parents, students, and the general public for a cocktail hour of poetry, essays, and fiction from The Common‘s special 10th issue. Join us in the Rotherwas Room in the Mead Art Museum at Amherst College. Wine & cheese will follow. Join the Facebook event here.
This event is free and open to the public.
Boston Book Festival
September 23, 2015
News and Events
Event Date:
Saturday, October 24, 2015 – 10:00am – 6:00pm
Location:
Copley Square, Boston, MA
The Common will be attending the Boston Book Festival in October! Drop by Booth 18 to meet our editors and staff, pick up submission guidelines, get a copy of our most recent issue, and spin our Wheel of Chance to win a prize!
The BBF is New England’s largest annual literary event, boasting a street fair, live music, writing workshops, and other interactive events for both adults and children. Find out more about this year’s event at www.bostonbookfest.org.
Bannerman Island
September 23, 2015
Dispatches
There is something in me that loves an island. I live on one (Queens, New York, on Long Island, across the East River from the isle of Manhattan). I’m attracted to all kinds—those buried by volcanic eruptions; adrift in a blue void endless as the cosmos; locus of nearly extinct languages; and even the fictitious Island of Lost Souls ruled by the mad scientist Dr. Moreau.
Notes from a Box
CRISCO IN A BLOCK
I’m not really sure why it’s all so illegible now. The ink fades to nothing midway through and is gasping for breath where it’s visible at all. I have a vague recollection of the page living on one side of the fridge for a time (reminding us of its existence)—so perhaps the sunlight hit it just so. Or perhaps the pen itself was too weak, not up to the task.
The Return
September 18, 2015
Essays
By AVIYA KUSHER
Here, deep in the thickness of northern Germany, dogs travel glamorously, in their own spacious compartments. Apart from the dogs, who are large and meticulously groomed, there are only a few passengers on the local train heading north from Hamburg. I see a man with black hair, carrying a leather folder bulging with carbon paper—a traveling salesman, perhaps. There are two old ladies in pastel cardigans, their cheeks wrinkled and stern, and three tanned backpackers, loudly sharing Muesli and what looks like bottled carrot juice. Other than that, there is just my blue-eyed mother, nervously staring out the sealed window.
Amherst Poetry Festival
September 17, 2015
News and Events
Event Date:
Saturday, October 3, 2015 – 10:00am – 6:00pm
Location:
Emily Dickinson Museum Grounds, Amherst, MA
Celebrate poetry with The Common at the Amherst Poetry Festival in downtown Amherst! Visit our booth on Booksellers Row from 10am–6pm for delicious homemade cupcakes and a chance to win exciting prizes.
Booksellers Row is located on the Emily Dickinson Museum Grounds.
View the full schedule of events here for more information on the Emily Dickinson Poetry Marathon, readings by acclaimed poets, panel discussions, workshops, and more!
Review: Valparaiso, Round the Horn
September 12, 2015
Reviews
Book by MADELINE FFITCH
Reviewed by JUNE GERVAIS
I like stories that leave me feeling I’ve encountered a living creature, or eaten a spicy meal, or sat stunned in a light-drenched temple. When a book feels like that, I want to offer a chili-studded forkful, or make urgent gestures: Feral pigs that way!
In the case of Valparaiso, Round the Horn, the debut short story collection by Madeline ffitch—which does, in fact, include feral pigs, along with myriad other wild creatures—I would hand it to you green and dripping, like a poultice of macerated plants, as an antidote to ennui.
